Hello, I am a new member here if you couldn't have guessed. The main thing that brought me here was because I am fairly new to Buddhism. I've been practicing the Zen philosophy without knowing it was Zen until my friend (who is a Mahayana Buddhist) told me what it was called. Silly me had been calling it Nihilism and had been walking the path for a little under 2 years now.

To summarize, I'm 16, turning 17 in a couple of months, and have an obscure interest in philosophy and religion. Part of how I found this site was by searching for forums to learn more about Buddhism. Much of my knowledge on it has progressed from believing Buddhism is just a religion saying "Be nice and love all" to a much more complicated and informative outlook of it.

So, as you may not hear too often in introduction threads; introduce yourself. I'm new so I'd like to get to know the community I will be living with online.

"And this is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it. We fight to deny it, but it is of course pretense. It is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely... out of control."

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---